My Father’s Visit from the Next World

He insisted on a cup of coffee. Little did I know he was saving my life.

Winter, 2014. The heat in my apartment went off at 10 p.m. and it was freezing cold. So I went into the kitchen, opened the oven door and turned the dial to 550, the highest it could go. Then I went to bed. (Not smart, I know.)

I fell into a very deep, warm, enveloping sleep watching a dream about someone rearranging glass dishes in cabinets, sinking so deep into unconsciousness that it didn’t matter what was playing on the white screen in my mind.

The dishes disappeared and there, on the screen, reclining and propped up on one elbow, was my beloved father, Irving Schenerman, a/k/a Isser Ben Manis, who died of leukemia in 1999.

“Dad?! What are you doing here?”

“Bethie,” he said, looking straight out at me, “go in the kitchen and make me a cup of coffee.”

How will you drink coffee? You’re not alive anymore.

“But how will you drink coffee? You’re not alive anymore. But wait, Daddy, I want to talk to you, I miss you so much.”

I knew if I opened my eyes, he’d disappear.

I had seen my father in dreams years before, once after getting scary news from a doctor and the next time while unconscious on an operating table. Both those times he’d been standing in mid-air, surrounded by a beautiful yellow light, with his arms held out to me. I had run into his embrace and gotten twirled around like a little girl, holding on tight, not wanting to let go. Both times, without speaking, he’d given a little push and released me back to this world where my children waited for me.

This time was different. After 15 years gone, dead and buried, he’d come back for – a cup of coffee?

He faded away and the dream about glass dishes came back on. My mind was giggling in Yiddish-English now, like someone in a stupor – drunk without drinking. “Vus iz dus with the plates?” I asked myself. “It’s too soon for an OCD Pesach prep dream!”

I waited to see if my father would come back. It was warm and cozy in my bed. I was groggy, drowsy, floating in the deepest ocean getting hit by wave after wave, sinking – and liking it, even. After surviving so much in my life, was I now scheduled to die? Was that why he was here? Was I going to grab a coffee to go and then float out of this world, arm in arm with my dad?

Suddenly, Dad was back again.

“Daddy, please talk to me, please don’t leave,” I said.

“Bethie,” he said calmly, “I can’t talk to you unless you go into the kitchen and make me coffee.”

The author’s father

Okay, okay, I forced my eyes open and looked at the clock. It was 6:00 a.m., time to get dressed for work, anyway – not like I really wanted to go there – or anywhere. I stumbled out of bed, feeling myself in a fog. I walked toward the kitchen.

Approaching it, a wall of heat hit me so hard, it felt like I was in a shvitz, a Russian bana sweat bathhouse, the kind my grandfather used to go to. And then I remembered. The oven! The oven had been on for eight hours, set at 550, with all the windows closed. God alone knew what could have happened! I felt like I was waking up from a coma, reaching for the pot to boil water for coffee.

The empty metal pot, sitting on the stovetop, was burning hot, like it was resting on a furnace. Even the plastic temperature dials were superheated. Maybe, given more time, they would have melted. I grabbed a potholder and shut the oven off.

Then it hit me – why my father had made his odd request. The gas and heat were so intense that maybe in a short while nothing in this world would have roused me from the deepest warmest sleep I’d ever known. Maybe a spark would have ignited; maybe I would have blown up my entire three-room, second floor apartment or the entire house, for that matter.

Maybe, in the little window of time before irreversible catastrophe, someone in Heaven had taken note, someone who’d loved me unconditionally all my life, someone who’d left the world of action years ago, but had never really left me, someone who knew that only he could force me out the deepest sleep.

“Poppy saved me,” I told my daughter Debra, who was visiting from Israel.

“Maybe you saved yourself,” she answered. “Deep down inside, you knew the oven was on full blast for eight hours, you knew it was dangerous, especially if the pilot light went out and the apartment was filling with gas and no windows were open and you were too groggy to get up.”

“You wouldn’t have listened to anyone else. He knew that.”

She continued, serious and rational: “So you created, in your mind, the one person who could move you to action, the one person who’d never lied to you or played games with you or turned his back on you no matter what stupid thing you were doing, the one person whose voice could rouse you from a coma-like state, and even against your will, make you turn away from wanting to remain with him – in order to return to life without him. You created the image of your father coming all the way from the Next World, to compel you to save yourself – before, God forbid, it was too late.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, feeling idiotic, weird, embarrassed.

She wasn’t done. “But I don’t think that’s what happened, Mommy. I think it really was Poppy talking to you, asking for a cup of coffee to get you into the kitchen to turn off the gas. You wouldn’t have listened to anyone else. He knew that.”

Perhaps someday, wherever we go to after death, I’ll sit down and have a cup of coffee with my father. Then I’ll ask him about this and many other hidden, mysterious things. Until then – chalamti chalom – I dreamed a dream, until it woke me up and saved my life.

During this snow storm was a great way to catch up on my reading. Great story - well written and gives one food for thought. It is so comforting to know someone up there is watching out for us. Hope your writer has more great stories to tell - looking forward to reading more,

(20)
W.H. Linder,
January 18, 2016 8:29 PM

Life is a mystery

Things happen, can't be explained, but I think it's true.

(19)
Aharon Tuvia,
January 15, 2016 7:45 AM

My own experience with this

When I was 17 I was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer that required 9 pints of transfusions. During my crisis, both of my paternal grandparents had dreams on the same night of their parents and grandparents davening for me and asking how I was doing. That contemporary science doesn't account for such occurrences just means that contemporary science has limits to what it can answer. The events themselves are very real!

(18)
Sharona,
January 15, 2016 3:44 AM

Another incredible story by Ms. Beth Sarafraz

Very inspiring.

(17)
Devorah,
January 14, 2016 9:01 PM

Your Father was utilized as a form you related to.

Oiy! He nudged you for a cup of coffee. If I am sure of anything, I am sure it was the Great One's intervention. He is a "nudger". Your Father was the form He took. Be grateful. :-)

Anonymous,
January 16, 2016 11:37 PM

Could not have said it better

The credit goes to a more encompassing Father that just knew what she needed to get her out of bed. As Hannah said in her prayer... There is nothing but G-d.

(16)
Anat Z.K.,
January 14, 2016 5:55 PM

Beautiful and inspiring

(15)
Freeda Schwartz,
January 14, 2016 3:19 PM

What a beautiful,inspirational,touchy article.Lucky for Aish to have such a writer

(14)
Howard Sanshuck,
January 13, 2016 5:12 AM

Who Knows

Maybe it was not really your father but your mind just responding with an image to wake you up. Alternatively it could have been from the other side. The end result was the same. A communication to save your life. It's possible that God will not allow a departed relative to say directly but must communicate the problem hence asking Beth to go make him coffee.

(13)
Robin Neglia,
January 12, 2016 10:42 PM

Kvelling in heaven

My sister, Beth Sarafraz, and I have shared many things through the years, but especially the love we always have had for our dad, Irving Schenerman. It does not surprise me in the least that he would come to her in a dream to save her from herself, or in this case, to have her shut off her oven. In life our dad was the type who, if necessary, would move heaven and earth for those he loved, especially his 2 little girls. We're still his little girls and it's enormously comforting to believe he is still watching out for us. Great essay, Beth...Dad is kvelling, for sure!

(12)
Sara Yoheved Rigler,
January 12, 2016 8:44 PM

Beautiful story beautifully told

Three and a half years after my beloved father died and five years into my treatments for secondary infertility, my father appeared to me in a dream, walked toward me, and told me that he was coming to live with me. A year later my son was born. He is named for my father and has so many of his physical and personality traits.

(11)
Anonymous,
January 12, 2016 6:55 PM

those who know this to be true will understand

I have had assistance from the otherside as well, it is comforting to be able to be in touch with others who know this does happen.thank you for sharing

(10)
David J,
January 12, 2016 6:10 PM

Dad couldn't just say "Hey, wake up before you blow the house up?"

Kind of a roundabout way to warn somebody, when the direct approach would have made more sense.

(9)
Rhonda J. Levine,
January 12, 2016 5:28 PM

The most moving article that I've read.

Thank you for this article/story. I was so moved as I've lived a similar experience having received a visit from my father who also was the one person that I could always count on and was there for me without my even asking. Well written, beautifully expressed....had me in tears.

(8)
Anonymous,
January 12, 2016 4:12 PM

OCD is not an adjective

Your article was great and well written. As a good writer, you should know OCD is not an adjective, it's a serious mental illness. Insert any other disease and you'll see it doesn't work, "Diabetes Pesach dream"...not even the adjective for that disease "diabetic". As you went through what I would imagine the hell of a family member w/ a serious illness, you can know what it's like to see someone you love morph into something else that's tragic. That's what OCD is. Unfortunately, too many people use the disease like a pithy castoff. I have an adolescent with OCD, and the pain of watching her childhood stolen from her is indescribable. No, it's not terminal, but yes I cry at night fearing for her life b/c her med has suicide as a side effect, and the life in her head can sometimes make the life outside her body unbearable. So I'm being bold enough to compare to family members with physical ailments.

I understand this isn't at all the thrust of your article, but if one author stops throwing around the term OCD casually, it will be worth it.

(7)
Anonymous,
January 12, 2016 3:29 PM

Wake up and Smell the Coffee?

Whether our subconscious or actual angels, we will know what this energy is one day, like we didn't know of electricity for thousands of years. When we then learn to use it, it will deeply change our lives.

(6)
Ann,
January 12, 2016 12:28 PM

My father came also soon after his death, and clad in white he told me:" now thanks to the books by Rav Arush i know there is a life before and after"! It helped me to mourn the loss to know that he rests in peace in the world of after...

(5)
Mark Roseman, Ph.D.,
January 11, 2016 9:34 PM

Summoned by coffee, or the afterlife

Ms. Sarafraz has captured so many of life's layers and questions in a truly delightful, and compelling narrative. Don't each of us question b'shert, olam haba'a, family relations, and reality? A lover of coffee as,I am, I think food (or drink) is more than a metaphor. It's a catalyst for life, for yearning, for sharing. Todah rabah to Ms. Sarafraz on sharing this very personal, and enriching story. I would ask the writer to consider further developing this dialogue as she might, and bring the reader further along in their own self discovery.

(4)
John Shore,
January 11, 2016 5:37 PM

Father's visit for coffee

We do not speak to those who have gone before unless we are dealing with evil spirits are what the Scriptures call "familiar spirits." To me it was an angel of God protecting her life because of the bad decision she made about leaving the stove on all night.

(3)
Reuven Frank,
January 11, 2016 5:31 PM

CAREFUL

I wouldn't "put this to the test" by leaving an oven on, and seeing if my father, A"H, comes back from beyond to wake me.

(2)
Chava Shulman,
January 11, 2016 6:05 AM

Visitor from the Next World

Beth's story touches the deepest parts of our human experience. We witness the eternal existence of the soul, and how genuine love transcends all worlds. Cold weather, coffee, a visitor. Simple everyday experiences reveal he infinite dimensions of everyday life.

(1)
Lee,
January 11, 2016 3:36 AM

UNBELIEVABLE

This is a story worthy of Small Miracles from Beyond: Dreams, Visions and Signs that Link Us to the Other Side. You should contact the author if they are making a Small Miracles from Beyond: Dreams, Visions and Signs that Link Us to the Other Side II and ask if your story is good enough to be in it. Coincidentally, I just finished that book and I think your story is THAT good.